I recently spent some time at the Stanley Parr Archives and Record Center (SPARC), the City of Portland archives out in North Portland, researching my documentary short film about Oregon during the Cold War. I was only able to skim the surface of all the civil defense archival material, but the staff was gracious enough to scan a few photos of the construction of the Kelly Butte command center. B-Love also joined me at SPARC and did some Memorial Coliseum research and found some awesome photos of that sports arena’s construction. Still trying to come up with a title for the project, but I’m leaning toward “Watching the Sea and Sky: Oregon’s Lost Cold War Infrastructure”. It really puts a focus on the documentary, which I’ve decided is an examination of Oregon’s air defense and underwater surveillance efforts from roughly 1955 to 1992.

During my visit to the SPARC, I also learned about another facet of Portland civil defense efforts I was not aware of: air raid sirens called “Wailing Willies”. I guess there were seven of these towers in various neighborhoods throughout Portland, but I don’t know any of the detail like exact locations or how long they were in operation. I’ll follow-up on my next trip to SPARC and hopefully find out more.